Modern-day technology is making more and more electronic data available to recipients by transmission from a remote supplier particularly in consequence of the ever increasing bandwidth available for the transmission thereof. In order to make business sense, much of this electronic data is made available only against prepayment by some suitable or appropriate means.
Whilst there is little difficulty in instances in which a recipient purchases a predetermined “package”, that could be a complete computer program, movie, song or musical score, there are numerous instances in which the extent of the electronic data that the recipient wishes to purchase, or the duration of online time required, is unknown, and may remain unknown until a significant quantity of electronic data has already been received, or online time consumed.
Prepayment is generally required for a predetermined period of time, say 30 minutes or one hour, or whatever other period of time is appropriate to the relevant electronic data, or, alternatively, prepayment may be made for a predetermined quantity of data, say a predetermined number of megabytes.
This arrangement leads to appreciable difficulties in that the prepaid time period may expire, or the prepaid quantity of data may have been received, before the required objective has been achieved. It is generally not possible to make another payment without going offline; making an additional payment; and going back online, often with the formidable task of trying to pick up where the activity left off, which is sometimes, in any event, impossible.
On the other hand, if a substantial prepayment was made on a “more than enough” basis and the recipient discovers that the data being received is not what is required, the balance of the payment made may be lost, or at least remain as an unwanted credit.
The upshot of this problem is that recipients often end up paying more than is necessary; and the supplier of the electronic data often ends up selling less because of terminated download sessions.